Chester and I left home in Puerto Princesa at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday and arrived at Nacpan beach at 5p.m. It’s a long boring drive, but we did have a few stops on the way. Coming here always bring back happy memories of my first trip North form Puerto in 2014, wedged in the back of a van with Drew! Nowadays we have the luxury of a car for Chester and I. Sadly this time, we could not persuade anyone else to travel with us as Jhoanna and Elay were tied up with college and Kit was already in Barutaan.
When I asked which countries people would like me to Blog about next Pav replied “Philippines” – so here you go. She is coming here soon from Canada on her way to a wedding with some friends. She was asking about the roads so I have included a few shots of the Northern Road which runs from Puerto to El Nido ( 5 hrs 13 mins and 285 km according to Google maps.
All roads North of Puerto go through Roxas (about a 2 hour drive from Puerto) and then you can fork off to Sabang (Underground river) , Alimanguan/ San Vicente etc) or carry on North to El Nido/ Nacpan and Barutaan via Taytay. The road goes from the east coast of Palawan to the west coast crossing over the mountains that run down the centre of Palawan. The road bends a lot so you have to be very attentive. The same road is used by the coaches (Cherry, Roro and Isadora Express) that stop regularly and the fast Vans (Ellen Joy, Ziti and many others) that try to do the journey in 5 hours. At the slower end of the spectrum are the slow trikes; mopeds carrying father, mother and 2 kids , small kids on bicycles and people crossing the road in the Barangays you pass through. Some people just stand in the middle of the road passing the time of day ( Chizmiz in Tagalog, or Gossip). The dogs also like to sleep on the white lines that run down the middle of the road. If any of you have driven in Ireland it’s very like that. Not an easy journey. Especially bearing in mind I lived in the Middle East for the last 12 years with fast highways and high-performance cars. The island I lived on, Bahrain, was only 22 km from one end to the other so my typical journey was 30 minutes!
In some places in Palawan the road is 4 lanes wide but often the lanes nearest the kerb are used by parked vehicles, people drying their rice in the sun, and vendor carts. In other places (where there is a bridge for example) the road narrows to 2 lanes. Often this happens without warning so it’s easy to end up on the grass or in the river!
Once you get out of Puerto the road is usually quite
clear so you can do 80 kmh but in many places you slow to a crawl behind a slow
trike when there is nowhere to pass. The road surface varies as well- if
bridges are being rebuilt (many were destroyed by Typhoon Odette on December 17
2021) there maybe just gravel. In other places the surface is concrete which
often cracks and has big potholes which you do not see until too late causing
the whole car to shake. The newest parts are smooth with a new road surface
being laid- which is a joy to drive on. Some is so new it does not even have
road markings yet! However, I guess the new surface is on maybe 20 km of the
total distance (usually for about 5 km at a time).
Back in the UK the main roads have Little Chef
Restaurants (where I used to work between 1986 and 1996) every few miles, and
the Motorways have Motorway Service Areas with toilets, Starbucks, Costa
Coffee, Burger King and KFC! Palawan has none of that so you often see signs
with “Bawal Umighi “(No Urination) on the roadside fences as people stop to
relieve themselves at the side of the road! The more I do the journey (I think
this was my 5th trip to El Nido by road) the more I find little
restaurants on the way. One of my favourites is Cecile’s, north of Roxas where
you can sit and eat by a lake. On this trip I lost track of where we were and
thought I had already passed Cecile’s so I stopped at the side of the road and
had a mug of coffee from my flask. Chester
had a bowl of water and a little walk. Then, refreshed, we continued to Taytay.
A few kilometres later we passed Cecile’s! We will visit again on the return
journey.
Chester poses against the backdrop of Fuerza Santa Isabel de la Paragua, built in 1667
My second favourite stop is Shinabuch in Taytay. I stopped there on this trip and had an amazing Lapu Lapu (local fish) with sweet and sour sauce and a fresh banana Milkshake and black coffee. It is all freshly cooked to order by the sea next to Fuerza Santa Isabel de la Paragua. I always get a warm welcome and a jug of ice cold water (all this for 450 Pesos ( £7).
After lunch and a few photos (yes, I
really am becoming Filipino!) we got back on the road for the final leg of the
journey.
From Tatay it’s about an hour to El Nido and, after
all the refreshments in Taytay, I needed to relieve myself. We stopped at
Vanilla Beach where a friend works in McDonalds! Chester had other ideas and
slipped his lead and ran down through the shopping centre to the beach where he
raced up and down the beach and went swimming. He was sooo excited to be free!
Chester ran away at Vanilla beach where he had a swim and ran up and down the white sand beach.
My apologies to all the people on the beach for the mad ( Baliw) Labrador racing up and down, especially if he ate your food! Eventually I gave up chasing him and went to McD for apple pie, coffee and French fries! As I sat and ate outside Chester returned and we continued our journey.
Finally, we arrived at Nacpan and I found our hotel and we checked in and unpacked. This is the first time I travelled here with Chester and I was surprised that many of the hotels at Lio, Nacpan and in El Nido would not allow dogs in the rooms. Kuya Ran eventually found a perfect place between the Glamping site and Angkla (where he used to work) and we were allocated Room 1 which is next to the sea which Chester loved!
As I sat in the packed Sunmai restaurant (which now has over 100 seats inside and another 50 outside) I reminisced about my first trip there in 2014. Drew and I were staying at El Nido Cove and Ritchelle’s husband, Kobe, took us there in his trike. Back then it was a small café with maybe 50 seats inside and some sun beds with umbrellas outside which they hired out. I noticed all these vans arriving at one end of the restaurant and the people would come in and claim their free drink and usually stay for something to eat. I thought how smart the owner was to set up this promotion with the van drivers from El Nido. Looking back now I realise just how smart the owners H and S really were! They now have two hotels in El Nido, named H and S, the Nacpan glamping site, an Air BNB at Nacpan, a new hotel at Nacpan and Sunmai has quadrupled in size. The Air BNB retails at 9,000 peso a night, as do the tents in the glamping, and I could not get as room at H hotel or the new hotel behind Sunmai as they were both full for the weekend. Now you will realise just how smart, and wealthy, they now are. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time and having the vision to reinvest your revenue and some good marketing. Their new H hotel has a Vegan restaurant on the rooftop with stunning views of Bacuit bay and is attracting a lot of attention on the social media. ( https://www.facebook.com/HHotel.ElNido)
On the Saturday night I visited they had two guys working at the pizza oven turning out fresh hot pizzas for the restaurant all night. Their Bartenders also make great cocktails so I am told!
Sadly, the pepperoni pizza had sold out so I had the Hawaiian!
And in answer to Jhoanna’s question, when I sent her a
picture of my pizza, yes, I did eat it all! After that I found Chester who was
wet from the rain outside our room so I dried him off and we slept from around
8 pm until 5 am when I wrote this blog outside on our veranda, watching the sun
come up and listening to the waves crashing on the shore!
So then I stopped blogging and started vlogging, taking
Chester for his first walk on Nacpan beach. We managed to beat the 5878 steps we did on Saturday! After that we had breakfast
at Sunmai and then we drove to Barutaan to meet Jhoanna’s brother, Making, her sister,
May Ann, and her daughter, Keanna. Then, after coffee, we met Rodel and Kit to
cover the Barutaan Fiesta for another Vlog and Blog special.
The new breakfast buffet at Sunmai was amazing. I had
rice, chop suey, fried egg, new potatoes and coffee – but I thought the price
was a bit high at 899 pesos (£14). For most people it is included in the price
of their room at the hotel or the Glamping! However, I am paying 2,500 pesos for
my room and they are paying 9,000 pesos for their tent so I am still saving
5000 and I get a room with ensuite hot shower and AC! I found out later the
breakfast at Angkla is 1,500 peso (£23) On the third morning I found another much
cheaper place, further down the beach, where I had amazing banana pancake, peanut butter and banana shake and coffee
for just 330 Peso ( £5). Moral of the story- shop around!
Our Sunmai Breakfast- Chester loved the Pineapple
Back in the UK I lived in hotels 5 nights a week as I travelled
the UK running training courses. My company paid the bills and I used to take
home the soap and shampoo! Now, I am retired, paying my own hotel bills, and I
take my own shampoo, slippers, tissues, kitchen towel, bath towels (for Chester
to sleep on and to dry him after he has been swimming or running in the rain. )
How times change!
On the way back I chatted to the guy operating the ATV
(6 sparkling new All-Terrain Vehicles) hire on the beach, who knew me (still
trying to work out where I knew him from, maybe the bar next to the cottage I
used to stay in which has now closed!). I have to say (sign of old age) that
they all have better memories than me. Even the guy who served my fried egg
said “There you go Mr Neil” and I had a hug from Kit’s mum who works there. I
have said many times before that being recognised and having your name
remembered is a great plus for the single traveller. Well done, Sunmai! Later I
had a message from Daniel who works at the Glamping site to say he had “heard I
was staying at Nacpan and was looking forward to seeing me after his days off
on Tuesday”.
After Chester’s early morning walk ( click on the picture below to see the Vlog " Chester goes to Nacpan" he
was exhausted and fell asleep on the veranda as I updated my Blog looking out
to sea. This place may look a little run down (needs a coat of paint) but it
has a plug socket outside to charge my laptop and phone, and 4 chairs and a
table on the veranda- so is the perfect place to type my blogs and sort out my
photos and videos. Sadly, however, there is no Wi-Fi, so I will have to do the
editing at Sunmai or Angkla later. But first I need to charge the camera
battery ready for the Fiesta! On Sunday they had a brown out (power cut) from 7
am to 8 pm and then on Tuesday there was no water. I just kept smiling through
the rain and chanted the Philippine tourism mantra over and over through
gritted teeth.
It IS more FUN in the Philippines!
Sadly, the Fiesta was a wash out with torrential rain
meaning the annual parade was cancelled. So, after having lunch with Kit and
Rodel at Lio, and meeting up with May Ann and Keanna we headed back to Sunmai
for early dinner and bed.
They say that every cloud has a silver lining and even
though the Fiesta was washed out and the HOPE event on Monday was cancelled I
decided to walk with Chester to the other end of the beach.
I discovered a track to another more secluded deserted beach and there was a small restaurant where I stopped for coffee and calamansi juice. The place soon filled up and the family who run it were kept busy serving bacon and eggs, pancakes and hot drinks to the interesting assortment of Belgian, Pinoy, Australian and other young people – and guess what? It was one tenth the price of Angkla and half the price of Sunmai!
Within a few minutes everyone was chatting to each other on the long bench tables and we hardly noticed the rain had returned until it was time to pay and walk back to the hotel. Chester had a great time as well swimming and playing with all the dogs there and the dog loving guests gave him a warm welcome!
Needless to say, I returned there for dinner on Monday night and breakfast on Tuesday before meeting up with Daniel and Rhoda at the Glamping site. Special thanks to Daniel for arranging for me to have access to their WIFI to finally upload all the blogs I had written in word. I will return on Thursday to edit the vlogs and upload them to YouTube. By lunch time on Tuesday I had uploaded 3 blogs and finally headed into El Nido to get some more cash from the ATM and buy some Pasalubong (gifts).
The sarap Mango float at Sunmai
The dinner (Pork in sweet and sour sauce and two
bottles of Royal (fizzy orange) cost a mere 360 peso ( £5) whereas my Meryenda ( afternoon snack ) at Sunmai,
consisting of a mango dessert and lemon juice was 470 Peso ( £7).
The best dessert in Palawan, Banana Touron with Vanilla popsicles at Angkla
However although I had 3 meals at the cheaper new
place I discovered I decided to treat myself to lunch at Angkla ( Calamansi
juice, Beef Lasagne and my favourite banana Turon with Vanilla popsicles ). Here I caught up
with my friend Arnel who I have now known since 2014 when he worked at El Nido
Cove where Drew and I used to stay. After catching up I stayed and used their
free Wi-Fi to check my emails etc.
There was an amazing sunset from the new place I discovered where I had sweet and sour pork on Monday night and many of the people I had seen earlier in the day were there. There was also a Pinoy I met on the way there who gave Chester some great massage and showed me the way back to my hotel with the torch on his phone!
My overall verdict of our stay in Nacpan was:
Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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